Ranging at $60, “Red Dead Redemption 2” is available for purchase at your nearest Game Stop, Best Buy, and Microsoft Store. 

“Red Dead Redemption” is a game about a former outlaw forced by the government to hunt down his old friends and mentor for the sake of his family, only to be hunted himself by the same government who put him up to the task.

It is a tragic story, through and through.

John Marston comes face-to-face with his old friends, not hesitating to shoot them full of more holes than the plot of the most recent Star Wars movie, without heeding the warnings that he would end up a target himself.

It is a brilliant game that builds up a beautiful story in the dying age of cowboys, set in 1911.

“Red Dead Redemption 2” is a prequel to the original set in 1899.

If only the characters knew about the first game because then they would know the whole “cowboy” thing is a dying breath that has been going on long enough to inflate my friggin’ car tires.

But I digress.

I was skeptical at first of a sequel to RD 1, as John’s character arc was already resolved, so we did not really need to see all the gang business if we already know what it lead up to.

I was pleasantly surprised, however, as RD 2 is more of a story about how John’s old boss, Dutch, goes from being a slick-talking charismatic leader to a jaded lunatic who would not hesitate to shoot a man in the head for looking at him funny —or for no reason at all.

For a story about John and Dutch’s gang, it is pretty nonsensical that we play as Arthur Morgan, an outlaw and part of the gang, despite the fact that he is never mentioned in RD 1 and can be assumed dead.

Arthur does the best with what he has, however, I do not really have any problems with him and can not come up with a better option for the main character myself.

If you could not care less about the story and just wanna shoot the baddies then this is your cup of murder. The action and gunplay are visceral and fun. You have to pull the trigger a second time after firing a revolver to load the next shot, which sounds annoying but becomes very satisfying over time.

Running around still has the problems of every game by Rockstar, where getting in and out of cover feels like shoving two magnets with opposite poles together and trying to turn around inside a cramped room feels like you’re controlling a human-Roomba hybrid.

The pacing also feels pretty slow at first, while the gang is trapped on a mountain during a snowstorm and trying to explore means inevitable icy death within 15 seconds, which is not exactly great for an open world game. Once the game starts, you have a lot of freedom of movement and plenty of diverse terrains.

My biggest gripe with this game is its size. You’ll need anywhere from 88 to 105 gigabytes depending on your system. So be prepared to part with your 60 GB of “Fortnite” dances, because we’re going to need that to render Arthur’s glorious dynamic beard in high-definition.

Bring this all together with a 60 plus hour-long story with hundreds of extra people and places to meet, befriend, rob and murder, and you’re in for a treat.

See you, Space Cowboy.